How many Polish women slept with Germans during World War II?

A real Polish woman could not love a Wehrmacht criminal, a German soldier had no right to fall in love with the "Polish pig". Both Germans and Poles condemned mixed relationships. But it was on the Polish side of Odium that fell mainly on women. Affection for the enemy turned them into "German whores".

A crowd and the clear excitement of onlookers. Two young people appear. Girl wearing a bag. A note around her neck reads: "I am a Polish pig" . Next to the boy. His plaque reads: "I am a German traitor" . The crowd mocks them, shaves their heads and burns their hair.

This unique five-minute recording from 1941 presents the "march of disgrace" of the Polish woman Bronisława and the German Gerhard. The couple committed Rassenschande , to disgrace the race . A crime of love.

If Bronia had been caught earlier by the Poles, she would probably have ended the same.

Lying collaborators

We have a lot of data on both sexual violence and prostitution - both forced and voluntary - in the occupied territories. But what about Polish women who pushed… a feeling into an intimate relationship with a Nazi?

Initially, the crime of race disgrace only concerned the relations of the Germans with Jews and Gypsies. Since the outbreak of World War II, it also included intimate Polish-German relations. A fragment of a German propaganda poster (photo:Wolfgang Sauber, license:CC BY-SA 3.0).

We don't know much more about them than that they were. And no wonder - such relationships required deep secrecy . There are photos and videos showing the fate of women accused of "lying collaboration". The taboos of naked girls with shaved heads were driven through the streets of Polish, Belgian and French cities.

While in Western countries it happened after the war, in Poland there was no waiting with the stigmatization of "bed collaborators". As early as December 1939, sticky notes appeared on the Warsaw walls saying:

Women who socialize with Germans are advised that there are still vacancies in brothels.

The Underground took these matters seriously. In May 1940, in two conspiratorial magazines, "Poland is alive!" and the "Information Bulletin", a decalogue of patriotic behavior was published. The authors advised, inter alia:

Curb Polish Polish courtesy (…). The occupation soldier, hostile official and demonstrations of the partitioning powers are not meant to exist for you. ... .

Patriotic Polish women fought, helped the insurgents and maintained the spirit of resistance. Relationship with the occupant? Only a "German whore" (source:public domain) could decide to do so.

The invaders should be ignored, not helped in any way, not taken part in their entertainment. For the patriot, the relationship with the occupant meant the denial of national pride, strip of dignity and exclusion from the Polish community. In the eyes of other Poles, she was simply becoming a "German whore".

Traitors of the Aryan Race

The "Act on the Protection of German Blood and Veneration" of September 15, 1935 took on a new dimension after the outbreak of World War II. Until 1939, the intimate relations of the Germans with Jews and Gypsies were punished. After the Nazi troops entered Polish territory Rassenschande it also covered relations with Poles.

The Germans set about implementing the law with their surgical precision. First of all, they approached the matter pragmatically. Contact with a non-Aryan lady of morals was not considered a race treason . Therefore, by order of Reinhard Heydrich on September 9, 1939, prostitution was regulated by the criminal police. Apart from sanctioned sexual contacts, any intimacy with the conquered people was forbidden.

Heinrich Himmler, caught up in the frenzy of extermination of the Slavic population, trembled at the thought of children born from Polish-German unions . The threat lurked everywhere - in the occupied territories, dissolute Polish women were tempted by Aryan soldiers, in the Third Reich forced laborers hunted for pure German women. Sentences, penalties and brothels for soldiers did not help. Himmler couldn't overcome one problem. Love.

"Breach of the terms of the employment contract"

This seemingly innocent sentence meant a death sentence for the forced laborer. Each Pole was informed about the consequences of maintaining intimate relations with Germany which he had to certify with his signature. Every German, in turn, knew what it meant to disgrace race and break the law on the protection of German blood and honor.

The Nazis chose Polish women who were "racially useful" to work in German farms. Any children born to Germans could then be brought up as little superhumans (source:Bundesarchiv, license:CC BY-SA 3.0 de).

But "blood is not water." In 1941 the issue of forbidden Polish-German intimate relations became such a serious problem that Heinrich Himmler introduced an ordinance according to which Polish workers delegated to work in German farms were to be selected in terms of "racial suitability". All this so that any children born to Germans could be Germanized.

As Krzysztof Świerkosz, former director of the Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Opole emphasized, it is impossible to clearly define the number of Poles executed for Rassenschande . Sources say about 700 to 1000 executions of Polish forced laborers. Świerkosz cited cases of "suicides" that could be de facto killings, which were used to cover up the existence of illegal Polish-German ties.

Executions for breach of race laws were carried out under Himmler's secret circular about special treatment ( Sonderbehandlung ). The same document referred to acts of sabotage. As a result of this regulation, the local authorities did not have to wait for the court's verdict.

Other forced laborers or prisoners of the nearby KL were most often forced to carry out the execution. Under Himmler's decree, the executioner was entitled to three cigarettes as a reward.

During the occupation, Polish and German public opinion was surprisingly unanimous as to what to do with women who sleep with the enemy. Both communities were dominated by a bald haircut and public stigmatization (source:public domain).

And although according to the Nuremberg Laws, a man was always to be held responsible for the crime of race disgrace, in practice women were also punished. Polish women were sent to camps, German women were subjected to the standard "re-education" imprisonment for 21 days.

Who is intimately acquainted with the enemy ...

On the Polish side, these issues were finally regulated by the Code of Civil Morality, prepared by the Justice Department of the Government Delegation for Poland. The document was most likely written in 1941. There are four divisions according to the severity of the crime species.

In the third chapter, it was noted that violations of the law are also committed by those who maintain an intimate acquaintance or love relationship with the enemy. The penalty was exclusion from the Polish community, i.e. the inability to occupy any state, local government and social positions.

The handsome German is still German. What mattered was the uniform, not the pretty eyes. Even if, as shown in the photo by Werner von Haeften, the man was by no means a Nazi by conviction (source:Bundesarchiv, license:CC BY-SA 3.0 de).

The sanction is quite mild in comparison with the death penalty, imposed, inter alia, for denunciations. It is known that the confidants were a real plague in the occupied country. Was the relatively low penalty for sleeping with the Nazis a result of the liberalism of the then underground authorities? Or maybe it was a proof that the ties between Polish women and Germans on Polish territory were a marginal phenomenon?

How many Polish women slept with the Germans?

There is no clear data. An important reference here could be the number of children born by Polish women to German soldiers. Cautious statistics, included among others in the reports of "The War and Children Identity Project" (WCIP), show that their number oscillates around 20,000 and is similar to the scale of the phenomenon in France and Belgium .

A story unthinkable! The relationship between a Polish patriot and a German soldier is the subject of a new novel by Mirosława Kareta. "I fell in love with my enemy" can be bought at Znak.com.pl.

There is also the question of those women whose partners were incorporated into the Wehrmacht. For although the action was not voluntary, the social odium remained the same. Sleeping with an enemy has many names. It is described in the case of Wiktoria Lysko, whose husband died in Ukraine in a German uniform. For years she carried the burden of the nation's traitor, and her son, Alojzy, was considered a Swabian bastard.

It is better not to talk about some things ...

The taboo around the topic of mixed-occupation relationships (and their fruits) can only be compared to the conspiracy of silence around children born under the Lebensborn program.

In Germany, there is one known case of a post-war trial of a person responsible for the denunciation of a German-Pole relationship. The guilty party was imprisoned in an internment camp in Augsburg and fined 20,000 marks.

Collaboration with the Nazis is a shameful thing. Love for the enemy was a double taboo. In the photo:volksdeutsche in Łódź (source:public domain).

Today, in four Bavarian towns there are monuments dedicated to Poles who were executed for maintaining intimate contacts with representatives of the gentlemen's race. The first one, funded by the inhabitants, was erected in Gallenbach in 2014 and commemorates the unhappy love of Anna Mayerhofer and Stefan Duda, who was employed by her parents. Interestingly, their relationship was accepted by the local community. The reason for the denunciation was the jealousy of another German woman.

In Poland, however, the love stories of the German occupiers and Polish women are most often taken by the latter to the grave.

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Love of a Polish woman and a German during World War II? For many, this is a taboo subject.

In "I Loved the Enemy" by Mirosław Karet, he skillfully takes us into the reality of Krakow under Nazi occupation. We meet Jadwiga, a maid from a good home, facing quite a dilemma - be guided by heart or patriotism? In the meantime, we get to know the contemporary story of a Krakow doctor who discovers a great family secret ...